The fantastic four go on holiday

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a tiny..... tent?  I'm just kidding, the tent was huge.


While New Yorkers have the Hamptons and Southerners have Hilton Head Island when they want to go on a "holiday, "Chicagoans have, well, I guess Wisconsin.  What better way for four city girls to enjoy a weekend while proving their badass-ness, than to go camping up in the dangerous wilderness?!  If you ask me, there is nothing more terrifying than entering a state of Packer fans and staying the night just outside of the Dells.  For the entire week before our trip, we planned our menu (yes, camping can be gourmet), who would bring our gear and whatever else we would need.  While I think Ally's ideas may have been a bit more rational, a few days before, I sat at the kitchen table with Amy and stated, matter of factly, "Well, we're going to need a jug of liquor... And dryer lint."  It proved to be true.  Our jug of liquor came in the form of "Jarvis," a good-natured, mild-mannered and delicious watermelon that we filled with vodka.  Try transporting that guy!  It takes skill.  The dryer lint?  Well, I think that goes without saying.  It was for the fire FYI.

At 4:00 A.M., two morning girls bounced around the apartment drinking coffee, making breakfast, packing the car with goodies and listening to music, while I (not a morning person) gave dirty looks to anything possible: the lamp for making my eyes hurt, the speaker for playing music and hurting my head, my phone for waking me up, myself in the mirror for being awake... told you, anything.

But sure enough, 5:30 A.M. after picking up Miss Tiffany, the fab four were bright eyed and wilderness bound. 5:35 A.M., all but Ally, who was driving, were sleeping.  Sorry girl.  Upon arrival, we set up our tent, and it started to rain.  So, we passed the afternoon playing cards and making drinks in the tent.  Once it stopped, we decided to go on a nature walk and explore the grounds.  Also, to see who we would be keeping awake all night with our ridiculous antics.  I never would have guessed that there would be a trail name the "time warp" trail.  To be honest, it was like stepping into one!  No, Frankenfurter and the rest of the Rocky Horror crew weren't there.  But, on one side of the sign, everything was flowering and green, then immediately on the other side of it, it was like land of the dead trees.  It was like a horror movie for nature lovers and tree-huggers. 

Snacking on chips and guac (and of course Jarvis) we prepared our gourmet meal.  Green chili with pork tenderloin and purple jasmine rice.  It simmered all day to make it perfectly spicy and delicious!  Plus, what could be more fun than purple rice!  Completely stuffed, there could only be one thing left to do.  Eat smores and drink champagne!  Ok, I guess thats two.  We decided to go with the monster size jumbo marshmallows, probably the size of our heads.  What can I say, bigger is always better ;) I'm talking about marshmallows of course!  Creeps.

Anyway, a few bottles of champagne, an extremely well planned game of charades that was never actually played and a couple of goofy stories and pictures later, we were snoring in the tent.  The girls seemed to think it was me, but if I didn't hear it, it never happened.  I'm just going to go ahead and blame some sort of animal for that.  Dogs snore right?  So why can't raccoons?  Or the ticks maybe....

The next afternoon, we decided to spend the 90 degree sunny day on the lake and try our hand at canoe-ing.  In case you didn't know, canoes are not meant to go straight down the river, but rather to zig-zag from bank to bank at an extremely high speed.  Amy and I could give you a demonstration if you are under the impression that this is not correct.  I assure you, it is.  It was sad to leave, and I'm sure we could have all stayed for another day or eight, but we had to come home and work, like real grown ups.  Lame.  I'm sure we will go again towards the end of the summer.  Stay tuned for updates.